4 thoughts on “Thank you Comoros”

Anjouan doesn’t have a military. But the Comoros system is copied on the French one, which means you have Gendarmerie on each island (armed national guard, to compare with the US system). The dissidents are not French, they are a mix of African Malagasy and Bantu, Persians and Arabs, like the rest of Comorians. The conflict is as old as the islands themselves. Their economy is not good and they have been fighting for twenty five years. It used to be a military dictature and is a federal republic since 2001. But Anjouan always felt discriminated by the two other islands and some of them are asking to join France back (like the fourth island, Mayotte, which refused independence in 1975). France refuses of course. But it is a bit moot. Comoros are actually more or less under French “protection” anyway (there is a French military base and France has been asked by the Comoros to defend the island against any external aggression, such as the recent attacks by mercenaries). The agreement does not cover civil war, though, which is why the AU had to intervene to help the Comoros army. This said, of course, it is actually France which transported the African units on Anjouan, ensured the logistics and probably paid the troops involved.

And you would be absolutely right. The Indian Ocean, unlike the Atlantic, has always been more of a trade and migration route than a barrier. Populations in the islands and even on the Eastern African coast are extremely mixed. Colonization has only increased the phenomenon.